Officials are adrift as the Vatican reels from one crisis to the next
Back in January, the question on everyone’s mind was: will the curial reform finally take shape this year? It was clear that 2018 would be a make-or-break one for Pope Francis – a year in which he would have to decide whether to use his gifts to set his project of curial reform and Church renewal back on track.
That was before Chile, before the crisis of clerical sex abuse and cover-up exploded in his face, and became the focus of new and sustained media attention. By March, the fifth anniversary of Francis’s election, it was clear that 2018 was off to a rocky start. Still, we were in the first quarter. There was time, if there was will, to turn the thing around.
